Stepping Back
by randomsomeone
Summary: Just because someone is honest doesn’t mean it’s appreciated. Just because a mask is dropped doesn’t mean you have to like what you see. OroTsu, oneshot. Much angst. No spoilers.


**Oneshot. **  
I own none of the characters in Naruto.  
(Soundtrack: Andain- Summer Calling - Josh Gabriel Mix)

* * *

Every once in a while, the Fifth Hokage requests some time to herself. She gets a meal, goes to the markets, maybe runs through one of the training courses. No matter what the day's activities are, though, the night is always the same. The front door would be locked, as well as the door to her bedroom. All blinds would be drawn; at one point she even puts furniture in front of her windows. And finally, in the accepting darkness and with no eyes but her own to see, she lets all illusions fall.

_Orochimaru is always cold. Spring, summer, winter – it didn't matter. This, Tsunade decides, has to be the root of his sour disposition. But at sixteen, she's infinitely stronger, smarter, and better than she's ever been before, heralded as a genius and ready to take on the world – starting with her taciturn teammate._

"_We're not so different, you know," she says, almost in challenge, and stifles a whoop of glee at his curiously arched eyebrow. As far as she knows, no one else has gotten past his chilly outward demeanor. But there had to be warmth in there, somewhere; after all, he **is** human._

"_Maybe," he returns, his smile smug as well as intrigued. Standing in front of him, she couldn't help but feel the same as she does at the edge of the cliffs surrounding Konoha. Stepping back would mean safety, but stepping forward..._

If you step forward, off of one of the cliffs, then only the air will catch you. She knows this now.

Sometimes she can't bring herself to turn on a light. She'd like to think of herself as strong, but there are some things she still has trouble facing.

Blood.

Memories.

Herself.

_When she's younger, her team stands perfectly together, fights brilliantly, moving to each other's defense as smoothly as if they can read each other's thoughts. The stories of their exploits, when related back to them, prompt her to bump her shoulder against Orochimaru's in jest and comment that their names have already been immortalized._

"_But that's all," he replies. Suddenly he's directly in front of her, barely inches away, features working with what her young girl's mind had once mistaken as passion but that she now sees as something harder, colder, more obsessive, on the thin border between disturbing and frightening._

"_Everything will decay. Even you." His fingertip brushes against the corner of her eye, chilly and feather-light. "Do you want that? Do you want to stand by to see yourself fade?"_

_The border is crossed. Shaken, all she can do is blink._

"_The legends, the stories, the tales people tell their children... They mean nothing. In the end there is only one thing to prevent this - us - from rotting like the meat we are."_

_It's then that she realizes what he's offering – to catch her if she steps forward, to share in something so forbidden that it's almost beyond the scope of her imagination. _

_She steps back. Once, then again. For a second he seems confused, but it doesn't matter because by then her feet are moving of their own accord and she's trying to tell herself that no, he didn't mean that, he couldn't have meant it._

_The near-distressed tone of his voice when he calls after her is the only indication she has that he wants her to reconsider, to return. "You can't run from everything, Tsunade."_

_No, but she can pretend. _

Years later, when Orochimaru is caught trying to create the forbidden technique he'd only hinted at before, she denies any knowledge, convinces herself that she hadn't known when he was passed up for Fourth that a retaliation of this sort wouldn't occur. Years after that, she's still pretending, but for a different reason.

He tells others that it is for the pursuit of knowledge that he searches for younger, more beautiful bodies to inhabit, that his true drive is to learn everything there is to learn and not just to avoid facing life's final lesson. She makes no excuses; her infamous temper is enough to deter most from questioning her reasons for the genjutsu hiding her true age. But sometimes... she gets tired of hiding.

It's still a long time before she can turn on a light. She can't undress in front of the mirror, so she does it in a corner, shamefully. After a few deep breaths, she finally steps away from the safety of the fabric and the shadows, facing her reflection in order to see what she has become.

_He's cold to her after the incident, only giving himself away on a bare handful of occasions. He taunts her, using his words cruelly when she's faced with the death of her brother – but he's also gotten her necklace back, so she wouldn't have to do so herself. In return, she offers her condolences after all but one of his team dies on a supposedly low-ranked mission. It's no use, though. He has no concern for who's gone, only for the one that's left. _

"_Anko's willing to learn what I have to teach," he murmurs, standing close enough to ensure that she remembers the last time, to be certain she understands the implications of what he's saying. "She's strong, young..." _

_Tsunade sees him reaching up but still flinches when his fingertip touches the corner of her eye again, right where she'd noticed the beginning of the faintest line, the first marker of her age. _

Age is no longer something she can deny. It's staring her right in the face, making sure she recognizes the slight hollowness to her once-rounded cheeks, the sag of skin at her jawline and under her chin. The wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and mouth that she's noticed before are thoroughly examined, finally dismissed. When she reaches up to touch the webby skin of her arm, more suited to a toad than a human, she stops, then takes a few moments to follow the patterns and colors of the protuberant veins on the back of her hand.

The decay is marked and noted. Wrinkled skin drapes like well-used and ill-fitting clothing over muscles that seem flatter, stringier than they'd been before. The slight paunch at the bottom of her stomach refuses to shrink. And as for what has become of her breasts... She'd laugh at them, at the near-ridiculous degeneration she's suffered, but such laughter only deteriorates into sobs. She knows this, as well.

"_Maybe we're not so much the same," she says. She doesn't want to hear about Anko, doesn't want to think about what she's passed up, doesn't want to even consider how she's never seen him choose to pursue a point like this. She doesn't want to let herself recognize that she's rarely seen him this close to someone without their immediately being on the receiving end of a fatal blow. _

_He smiles, thin lips pressing together and stretching into the semblance of humor, then leans forward to whisper his reply into her ear. "I think we are."_

In enough time, either the disgust forces her back into a more familiar form or she tells herself that she's simply tired of examining the old one. After all, her genjutsu-maintained face is how Konoha knows her – as young, unchanging, Leaf's own example of beauty combined with strength. So she goes on, has a soothing cup of tea, and in a few hours is ready to return to her duties.

After all, she's the Fifth Hokage. Her responsibility is to the people of Konoha, to protect them. Admitting that he's right isn't one of the things her job requires.


End file.
